Peer/Colleague Observation Write-up

Observer: James Hu Observee: Kevin Engberson

Date of Observation: 2/17/2017

Describe what went well.

Kevins class is very well managed. He is able to gain the classs attention quickly and has a variety of
methods of doing so. The activities are easy to learn, perform, and interpret. Kevin also is very thorough
in his explanations and reviews of previous lessons for students who did not attend. He gives a simple
overview of what the class will do at the beginning of the class, preparing his students for the tasks at
hand. He engaged very well with some of the students who are disengaged prompting them to do work.
The students also engaged well when transitioning to textbook work. The textbooks seemed to
motivate them to work harder than when performing labs or activities, possibly because there was
more of a visual/graphical component involved.

What did you think should be changed or improved next time?

During the warmup session, Kevin seemed to be focused on setting up the lesson and activity rather
than ensuring students were fully engaged with the warmup. As a result, there were students who
simply sat around and did nothing during this time. Kevin also seems to engage with certain
disengaged students and leave others alone. His overall goals are also not clearly expressed to the
class, only the tasks. He eventually expresses the goals by linking ideas of the lab to the data, but does
so at a time that students have already become disinterested.

How did the teacher motivate the students?

Kevin employs coaching as the primary mode of motivation by sitting down with students one-on-one
during activities or labs and walking them through the activity or lab, encouraging them to do the work.
From what I gathered, there is also a reward system if students are on task and complete a majority of
the work.

What evidence did you see of students integrating and applying skills they were acquiring?
During the activity, the students plotted data points of the labs they performed the day before and
answered questions about it. Once prompted to make the graphs, they were able to answer the
questions with relative ease, showcasing that they are able to interpret plots and figures. The main
issue is that the students had to be initially provoked to make plots, otherwise they would not do so.
This is not Kevins fault, though, I experience the same type of work ethic in my math I classes. As
mentioned before, the students were more motivated when asked to answer questions from the
textbook. They illustrated research skills when asked to answer questions found in the textbook.

Describe the class climate:

The class is very subdued and calm, possibly due to it being the final class of the day and their energy
being expended. Many of the students mirror those of my math I students, unmotivated to work unless
persuaded. Coaching is a big part of class participation to work, regardless of task difficulty. There were
several students in Kevins class that are also in my math I class and I had asked if my class was more
difficult; they confirmed that it was while torpidly working on the easier activity in Kevins class. The
rapport between the students and Kevin gives off a feel of teacher-and-student and can sometimes
feel stiff, though I need more observation time to ascertain how mutual the respect is. The class is
neither rowdy or disrespectful and Kevin does a good job to ensure this climate employing multitude of
class management methods from using his meditation chime to a stern eyes on me prompt.